Here is an esper with a maple leaf pin attached to her purse alternating between the snacks and the crowd.

Here is an esper in a nice gold vest and slacks but no shoes, who is examining the cheeses before he notices her.

"Oh hey, Canada too?" 

"Yeah, I'm based in Toronto. You?"

"Winnipeg! But I go all over. We've got an office in Toronto, I'm there every day." He offers a handshake? 

Here is an esper. She's using a hiking pole as an improvised cane and wearing a mask (just an ordinary drugstore mask). Whoever thought the hard part of having superpowers would be not using them? Not Lily, that's for sure.

"Lily. Lilypad," she mutters under her breath, worried she's going to slip up and introduce herself with her regular name.

She won the argument and so her mom is waiting in the Starbucks around the corner, not in here with her. If all these agencies are treating her like a real adult, she's going to have to live up to that. Nerves and all. (Aaaaaaah.)

"What kind of work are you doing?" 

(Handshake) it's pretty meh)

Oh well! 

"I'm in cargo transport, mostly. I've got pretty good range but I'm not that good for rescue, so. How about you? Toronto gets a lot of dungeon traffic compared to the rest of us, right?" 

An awkward and young looking redhead is circulating the crowd, offering fistbumps to everyone with her right hand, even as her left-

Is holding the hand of another young adult, who seems somehow even more scared of the whole party environment. (She keeps encouraging him to offer fistbumps to people, too. More options is probably good, and all.)

"Yeah, I do dungeons. I have a stealth power, so I do scouting and grabbing victims."

Lily heads over to the two espers who just walked in.

"Hi! I'm, uh, Lilypad, nice to meet you," she mumbles.

Fists are not exactly happening for her at the moment but she can offer the back of a vaguely curled hand to tap against the redhead's, and also the boy's.

[Continues]

"My partner and secondary do dungeons, they're more combat than rescue though. I'm a teleporter, if that wasn't obvious," he adds, laughing a little. 

[cont here]

A youngish suited esper appears!  His introduction is smooth, as though he's done this dozens of times.  In his head, on the taxi ride over.

"Good afternoon.  Would you like to check for compatibility?"  A hand is half-raised, as though wanting to reach out for a shake but not quite willing to commit to the handshake or whose hand to shake first.

Zei (early twenties, slouching posture, all in semi-formal black) is standing nearish one of the speakers playing music and is slightly surprised (and a little annoyed) to be approached. Which he shouldn't be, this is an esper mixer, but he didn't want to be here anyway, so fuck this.

Still, he offers his hand. 

"Sure, I guess."

Success!  A compatibility test!  Now all Tim needs to do is finalize the handshake and - 

 Zei jerks back from the hand and several more feet away before he even notices what his body is doing!

Tim rips his hand away like he'd touched a hot stove.  Zei's movement startles him and without thinking, he brings his right hand up in a palm-up warding gesture, his left turning to a fist near his breastbone.  His body pivots, his left foot moving to the rear and his right foot forward.

After a moment, though, he realizes that there is in fact no threat and forces his body to relax.  "I am very sorry, I had no idea that was even...even a thing."  He laughs a little nervously and re-normalizes his body language.

"...I've met a couple people I was incompatible with before, but not like that. Fuck," he shakes his hand out, "Guess our backlashes are a lot alike, huh." 

"This is the worst one I've had, too.  Um, not that you're the worst, just.  Our compatibility is the worst together."  Why are words like this.  "Mine's tiredness.  Not the worst way to spend Hell Week, mostly asleep, I'm just glad Maman was around to take me to the hospital or else I wouldn't've been awake enough to get water.  Or food."  Tim carefully stretches his wrist, rotating it while clenching and relaxing his fingers.

"I'm Tim, by the way.  Or Aumento."  Tim begins to offer a handshake before his brain catches up, and he awkwardly puts both hands in the pockets of his jacket.

"Zei. Counterweight." His hands are tucked behind him so there was never any danger, at least. "Mine's weakness. You wanna meet my partner? No guarantee it'll work, but it doesn't hurt to try." 

"Yessir.  Where are t..hey?"  TimAumento glances around, surely Zei's Counterweight's partner will be clearly labeled as such.  Great, even the other mixers already have partners.

"She's over here," he waves a hand to get him to follow, heading over to one of the smaller rooms filled with comfortable seating off the main room.

[cont here]

Over by the cheeses, the blonde shoeless esper is alone again, working his way through a napkin of fancy cheese. 

An antsy looking young esper is on the prowl for people whose fists she has not yet bumped, and comes over to him. (...And takes several little fancy meat slices on a cracker in passing.)

"Heyo. Wendy." Fist held up?

"Jamie!" Fist bump! It's another kinda 'meh'.

"Not a lot of luck for me so far," he comments, "Still, it's nice to meet you. Where're you from?" 

Sigh. "I'm a local. And like no offense or nothin' but I'm real antsy right now. Unless you know someone who might match 'itchy' or 'needs to be squeezed' as a backlash I'ma keep circling...?"

"Hmmm..." He knows a lot of people, but obviously not a lot of people here. "Not that I can think of, sorry. Good luck! There's so many people here, you'll probably find someone decent." 

"That's the hope! You too."

More salami, and away she goes, again.

And Jamie spots some interesting figures hanging out by the cute little desserts table, and leaves the cheese to be menaced by someone else.

Tim emerges from a handicapped restroom, deliberately choosing to believe that being an esper entitles a person to facilities that able-bodied people should believe.  He's not feeling vaguely guilty, they have the entire hotel booked, nobody who really needs a handicap restroom will be deprived because he took ten minutes in there.  Really.  He's not.

He's definitely not thinking about the reason an entire quilted rug, condom dispenser, and a box of baby wipes were strategically left in there.  Those are normal.  Anybody could need those while using the facilities.

You came here to meet partners.  Business partners.  You can't use your powers without a partner, you want to use your powers.  Just do this.  You did the hard one first, and everyone knows that a white belt is the hardest to get, not a black belt, because most people don't even show up.  Get out of your head and - there's one.

"Good afternoon, ma'am.  Would you like to test for compatibility?"  A hand outstretched, ready to offer a firm handshake, but not to close too quickly.  He's learned his lesson.

Wendy is munching on salami slices on a paper plate, not even bothering with the fancy crackers. She gives a thumbs up and holds out a fist to bump without pausing her chewing.

Simon has been an esper for four years but still insists on going to esper mixers. He says that it's important to meet new(ly awakened) espers! And because he wants to help other 'useless power espers' like himself, that aren't able to fit into the typical esper job niches of healer, constructor, dungeoneer, and support. And because he's kind of established himself as a professional partner as an adjunct to his illusion food business, and having more potential clients is good.

Damian isn't really much for esper mixers but he acknowledges that they are, indeed, good for networking. He goes with Simon to mixers in the California or nearby states (if he feels like it), but this time Damian is visiting a friend in Chicago, and it just so happened that there's a mixer planned the next day. So obviously Simon wants to go with him.

Here is a man wearing a lustrous Italian cut burgundy silk satin suit, matching tie, with neatly slicked and combed hair. He has cufflinks of ruby and silver and a white pocket square. And a chunky silver watch. He has oxblood leather shoes. Also, he has red eyeshadow on. Because he really wanted to be extra extra today. Neither he nor Simon are wearing perfume because. They forgot to bring them when they flew here. Ugh. Oh well.

He has black hair and red-violet eyes. He has on a polite smile.

And here is the man with him! They're not touching but it's obvious by the way they stand near each other that they're partners, or otherwise very close. He's a little shorter, than Damian — he's six foot nothing whereas Damian has another inch. He's wearing a black long sleeved button-down shirt buttoned all the way up, that has bright millefleur embroidery of oranges all over it. He has a cloisonné enamel bolo tie on also depicting an orange. He has loose white pants, with the shirt tucked in, and boat shoes. He has no watch but does have a small dark gray rayon messenger bag.

He has bright blonde hair and a trimmed beard and similarly bright yellow eyes. He looks cheerful and very into the food. Yay fancy meats and crackers! It's a shame all the cheese is gone but he thinks they'll restock the trays in a bit.

[Wendy, Damian, Simon, Tim breakout thread: near the fancy meats]

Jamie is over by the drinks table now, examining the soft drink offerings. Coke? Orange soda? Root beer? Sprite? So many choices, not enough time...

Tim walks in from where he impulsively hurled a man all the way in the air.  It takes a few minutes for the glances to go away, but when they do he spends a minute staring at his phone, taking photos of the business cards.  He stuff his phone into his pocket and - hey, there's a new one.  "Good afternoon.  Would you like to test for compatibility?"  Confident offer of a fistbump.  See, you knew it would be easy, and it is easy except for how you tie yourself up over it.